1. Founders can really help or hurt their scaleups When you become a bigshot founder of a scaleup your every word and behavior is closely observed and acted on. This gives you the power to do a lot of good and the power to do a lot of damage. I've started working with some incredible scaleups that are each in their own right changing the world. Part of my work however includes working with founders to adjust their engagement with the expanding team so that their superpowers are used in the best most constructive way possible. As a founder in this position you must move from "getting shit done" to "building the thing that builds the thing". This means that your primary strategic levers to drive change are not cutting code or running products but rather explicitly defining a great culture communicating high-level business priorities establishing effective ways of working and funding teams to succeed. The primary way you tactically interact with individuals day-to-day moves from telling them what to do towards reviewing work and encouraging everyone to be more aligned more ambitious and more effective in their decision-making. By doing this you show your team that it's their job to come up with bold answers that move the needle and you give them the space to do their very best work. It's hard to make the switch but make it you must or you will ultimately thrash your team and deliver sub-optimal results. - But what does it really mean to be a founder and how do you avoid putting the wrong people in the wrong roles in the early stages of your emerging startup? See the next post to learn more.What are the Key Roles in a young startup and why is it important to get them right? I often find people working with young startups who are not quite sure how to position themselves their equity holding their influence and their accountability in the business. It's essential to label people's roles and responsibilities correctly. It has many benefits including a) smoothing out day-to-day operations by making areas of responsibility and accountability clear b) accelerating fundraising by helping investors understand whom to talk to and whom they're investing and c) helping key employees feel valued and incentivized to give their blood sweat and tears to the business by ensuring they have the right title responsibilities and equity. Here are some key roles that are often conflated and confused. Operational (co)Founder: Someone who's played an instrumental role in the formation of the company (likely taking on significant risk at the beginning by working without pay) and (crucially) will continue to play a full-time operational role in the business moving forward. This person should have a meaningful equity position. Non-operational co-founder: Someone who may have contributed to the initial formation of the business but has other commitments that limit their availability to participate in an operational capacity. They might play a role on the board or provide capital as an investor (see below for definitions) but are not involved day-to-day. This person should have a minor equity position for their initial founding contribution (+ any additional equity they earn through capital investment). CEO: (Very) Ideally a (co)founder. Plays a full-time key operational role in the company. Makes key decisions. Leads essential operational workstreams such as fundraising hiring vision/goal setting etc. Once capital is raised is (very) ideally only involved in running the given startup and has no other operational roles in any other business. Must have meaningful equity. Investor: Provides capital and some non-operational support (advice intros reputation industry connections etc). Collectively all the investors can have meaningful equity in the business but must not have a larger position than the operational founders. Board member: Either an external (wasn't involved in forming or investing in the company) key industry professional who can help steer the business or a key representative(s) from the investor group. Might also include a non-operational founder who has seniority domain expertise and perhaps provided initial capital. 1 person can perform multiple functions in the business and as such be attributed equity from multiple pools/reasons. However it is value destructive to the company for someone to have the title and/or the equity of another role but not properly and fully perform the duties of that role. As such it is against their best interest to do this since whatever equity they hold will be under-valued or ultimately be reduced to zero when investors and other operators choose to under-invest or walk away entirely.Let's work together...I continue to work with a small portfolio of companies (startups large corporates and venture funds) as a Strategic Advisor (https://www.chrissaad.com/advisory) and Angel Investor (https://www.chrissaad.com/angel) . My goal is to help them fast-forward to the best possible answers and avoid the key mistakes that waste time and money. Hit reply and let me know if I can be helpful.Share The Startup Newsletter with othersIf you find this newsletter valuable you can share it with your friends via https://www.chrissaad.com/startupnewsletterStay in touch with me via...http://www.chrissaad.comhttp://www.facebook.com/chrissaadhttps://www.twitter.com/chrissaad/http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissaadhttps://medium.com/chrissaad
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My mailing address: 23 River Park Place. Fig Tree Pocket. Australia. | ** Unsubscribe (*|UNSUB|*)*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|* In these emails I typically share some of my concise thoughts on building startups leading product strategy and driving disruption. I welcome any feedback or questions they might inspire - just hit reply!I started a podcast!The first two episodes are already out. The show promises "lucid rants on driving disruption". I'd absolutely love it if you could have a listen and send me feedback. Episode 1 - Small Business SyndromeWhat is the difference between a Silicon Valley-style tech startup and a regular small business? In this first episode of The Startup Podcast Chris and Yaniv talk about the many ways people misunderstand what makes startups different from other businesses and what goes wrong when these differences are ignored. Listen to episode 1 (https://anchor.fm/the-startup-pod/episodes/Ep-1-Small-Business-Syndrome-e1f75jc) Episode 2 - Ideas are cheap Got an idea for a startup? Congratulations so does everybody else! In this episode Chris and Yaniv dive deep on the idea of ideas their role and their limitations in the context of building a startup. Discussion topics include:* Do ideas matter?* What does a good idea look like?* How does progress create opportunities? And vice versa!* Validating your idea.* Building consensus for your ideas. Listen to episode 2 (https://anchor.fm/the-startup-pod/episodes/Ep-2-Ideas-Are-Cheap-e1fi8ei) Subscribe rate and review on all the platformsIt's all about feeding the algorithm. If you could help me out I'd really appreciate it. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-startup-podcast/id1612757016 https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84NjhlNWEwNC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw https://open.spotify.com/show/5C6oN1uFj29A4jHZn57lNOLet's work together...I continue to work with a small portfolio of companies (startups large corporates and venture funds) as a Strategic Advisor (https://www.chrissaad.com/advisory) and Angel Investor (https://www.chrissaad.com/angel) . My goal is to help them fast-forward to the best possible answers and avoid the key mistakes that waste time and money. Hit reply and let me know if I can be helpful.Share The Startup Newsletter with othersIf you find this newsletter valuable you can share it with your friends via https://www.chrissaad.com/startupnewsletterStay in touch with me via...http://www.chrissaad.comhttp://www.facebook.com/chrissaadhttps://www.twitter.com/chrissaad/http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissaadhttps://medium.com/chrissaad
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My mailing address: 23 River Park Place. Fig Tree Pocket. Australia. | ** Unsubscribe (*|UNSUB|*)*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|* In these emails I typically share some of my concise thoughts on building startups leading product strategy and driving disruption. I welcome any feedback or questions they might inspire - just hit reply!Management is not all it's cracked up to be When working with scaleups I've noticed some debate about who should report to who. Here's how it works in the best tech companies in the world... Juniors in a function report to senior members of the same or similar function. For example: Designers report to Group Design Leads who report to Head of Design. Engineers report to Eng Managers who report to Group Eng Managers and so on. There are exceptions where functions are similar. E.g. it makes sense for designers to ultimately (toward the top of the org) Product. It makes sense for Data Scientists to ultimately report into Engineering. Stated in the negative Product should not report to Engineering. Design shouldn't report to Marketing. Why? This is because it's essential that managers can be of service to their direct reports. They must be in a position to provide guidance about their craft perform fair performance reviews nurture their career during 1:1s and help them resolve interpersonal issues that might be unique to their particular area of responsibility. But what about when individuals are deeply embedded in a department (as they should be)? For example what happens when designers are working closely with Marketing. They need to be able to heavily influence the work the designers are focused on right? This is solved by splitting "management" into two separate parts: Part 1: Management of people culture and craft: This is performed by your "manager". They help you understand HOW to do your work. They are the "solid" line on the org chart. Part 2: Management of workload and priorities: This is performed by your "colleagues". They help you understand WHAT work to prioritize. They are "dotted" line on the org chart. By splitting it this way you get the best of both worlds and unlock the potential in your team.Managing conflict in your business and in your team As a founder or leader in a business how you deal with conflict misalignment and sub-optimal behavior from direct reports or vendors is more important than how you deal with things going well. To be an effective operator you need to...1. Take maximum accountability for other people's misunderstandings underperformance or confusion and correct your own behavior before blaming others. Consider how you might have set expectations and communicated more clearly.2. Have hard conversations and establish new boundaries before things reach a failure state.3. Set clear goals and use carrots and sticks to encourage changes in behavior.4. Provide fair and reasonable pathways for remediation.5. Treat people respectfully and ensure they are compensated well even while you might need to move them out of the business. This might include agreeing on a new/different role (with different titles and terms) to better reflect their abilities or contribution.6. Do most of these things a) in private b) on the phone or in-person rather than via email (document actions in an email afterward). https://anchor.fm/the-startup-pod ** The next episode is here!Episode 3: Execution at Early Stage Startups------------------------------------------------------------ Ideas are cheap but execution is where the magic happens. Listen as Chris and Yaniv talk about what it means to execute successfully as an early-stage startup. We finally disagree about something too! Topics covered:* What do we mean by execution?* What is good execution in an early-stage startup?* WTF is an MVP?* How do you know you have PMF?* The pivot. When to pivot.* Common mistakes in early-stage startups.* Examples of great execution at this stage. Listen now! (https://anchor.fm/the-startup-pod/episodes/Ep-3-Execution-at-Early-Stage-Startups-e1fsebr) Let's work together...I continue to work with a small portfolio of companies (startups large corporates and venture funds) as a Strategic Advisor (https://www.chrissaad.com/advisory) and Angel Investor (https://www.chrissaad.com/angel) . My goal is to help them fast-forward to the best possible answers and avoid the key mistakes that waste time and money. Hit reply and let me know if I can be helpful. I have 1 slot open for 1:1 advisory for Q2. Let's talk.Share The Startup Newsletter with othersIf you find this newsletter valuable you can share it with your friends via https://www.chrissaad.com/startupnewsletterStay in touch with me via...http://www.chrissaad.comhttp://www.facebook.com/chrissaadhttps://www.twitter.com/chrissaad/http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissaadhttps://medium.com/chrissaad
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My mailing address: 23 River Park Place. Fig Tree Pocket. Australia. | ** Unsubscribe (*|UNSUB|*)*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|* In these emails I typically share some of my concise thoughts on building startups leading product strategy and driving disruption. I welcome any feedback or questions they might inspire - just hit reply! It's a long one this time. Topics inside are...* Does the engineering team at your scaleup "suck"?* My exotic car obsession has made me a better product manager.* Podcast corner - 4 new episodes!* Hiring opportunities I've been thinking...Does the engineering team at your scaleup "suck"? Are they too interested in tinkering with technical challenges? Do they over-estimate and under-deliver? Are they making technical choices that don't scale or aren't fault-tolerant? Are they working on the wrong things? Rather than blaming the engineering team the first thing to do as a leader is to take maximum accountability. You need to improve the context and constraints inside which they work to improve their priorities and decisions. Specifically...1. Ensure they are organized into mission-driven long-lived cross-functional squads (Product Managers Engineering Managers and Engineers working together) rather than an amorphous "engineering team" or "core platform team".2. Ensure each squad is led by a strong Engineering Manager with the right balance of technical credibility and business acumen3. Ensure each squad has a strong Product manager who is setting priorities and creating lean thin slices of minimum viable releases.4. Ensure that squads set ambitious outcome-driven OKRs. Key results with user adoption metrics or funnel conversion metrics are best. Launch dates are much less ideal. Unmeasurable Key Results are a fail.5. Establish effective engineering-specific cultural values. How they should interact
